According to online learning provider Udemy’s 2014 “Skills Index” survey, 52 percent of U.S. students polled said they take courses related to technology or computer programming. Udemy’s Skills Index is composed of data from 7,000 students enrolled in the company’s top 100 paid courses.

“The gap between what many Americans need to know about tech and what they do know about tech will only continue to widen with time,” said Dennis Yang, CEO of San Francisco-based Udemy. “Our general belief is that the half-life of an individual’s skill set is decreasing at a rate that’s faster than ever before. If you look at technology cycles, they’re happening faster over time.”

Within the technology category on the Udemy website, 51 percent of students take programming courses and 15 percent take information technology administration. Further, 13 percent of students take software courses and 12 percent take mobile development courses.

“I think online is a good way to lay the foundation, to stay and teach the basic concepts and methodology and give them the basics,” said Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice president at Modis who carries out IT staffing. “I think when you mix in real-time training, that reinforces what you learned in real time.” Students using these learning programs are typically between 25 and 44 years old and new to the workforce.More than 30 percent of them consume the content via a mobile application on a mobile device.

Out of all the course categories on Udemy, the development courses outshine the remaining sections in enrollment numbers by a large margin. “Java for Complete Beginners,” for example, has 212,000 students, with a few other classes trailing with more than 100,000 students. There is no data that tells how many students finish the courses. Read more...

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Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.